Search Results for: food

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

LEBANON’S food manufacturing sector took a heavy blow during the 34-day conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hizbullah, recording tens of millions of US dollars in direct damages and more than US$500 million in indirect losses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Agency (EFSA) is to investigate human health risks caused by the contaminant ethyl carbamate in all alcoholic drinks, focusing on its presence in stone fruit brandies. The chemical can naturally occur during fermentation, but a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Health Organisation expert committee has concluded ethyl carbamate is "genotoxic and is a multisite carcinogen" in all animals, including humans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressing MEPs and ministers to award it by Christmas new powers over changing European Union (EU) rules on food additives. It has asked for special ‘comitology’ powers to amend future a EU regulation on "the addition of vitamins and minerals and of certain other substances to foods", currently under discussion.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission is pressing MEPs and ministers to award it by Christmas new powers over changing incoming European Union (EU) rules on food additives plus foodstuff nutrition and health claims. It has asked for special ‘comitology’ powers to amend these newly agreed regulations, without asking the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament first.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA)-hosted conference has been warned that national food sectors dominated by small businesses have real problems implementing new European Union (EU) food hygiene laws. At a two-day meeting at EFSA’s headquarters in Parma, Italy, lawyers representing the European food industry, food safety regulators and consumer organisations heard that even EU regulation 178/2002 on food safety was proving tough to enact, even though it defines general principles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HONG Kong and China have been branded as the world’s serious hotspots for counterfeit clothing and accessories, in a global European Commission survey of countries where product fakes are manufactured. The Commission’s directorate general (DG) for trade gathered the information from companies, diplomatic missions and trade federations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) food processors using cheap imported soft fruit and cherries are facing an attack on these ingredient supplies from the European Parliament. MEPs have called for the European Commission to introduce an unusual protective duties levied where "environmental and social standards in their production [are not] corresponding to those of the European Union."…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

NEARLY a third of all confectionary sold in China are counterfeit or copycats of global brands, a new European Commission survey says.

The intellectual property enforcement survey for 2006, based on questionnaires about infringements and the attitudes of the authorities in the countries concerned, put China at the top of the tree for sweet fraud.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told the Czech government it should improve radioactivity-monitoring systems installed around its Temelín nuclear power plant. Although it confirms with Euratom regulations, Brussels’ radiation department of its energy directorate general said Czech regulator SONS (state office for nuclear safety) should ensure there is full traceability for the transport of environmental samples from Temelín to government laboratories.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) food processors using cheap imported soft fruit and cherries are facing an attack on these supplies from the European Parliament. It has called for unusual protective duties levied where "environmental and social standards in their production [are not] corresponding to those of the European Union."…